By Cassar, R., 2012 Exploring Institutional Evolution in the Development Planning System of a Small Island State: Malta Kerli Kirsimaa Exploring Institutional Evolution in the Development Planning System of a Small Island State: Malta Supervision: Dr. Arnold van der Valk; Land Use Planning Group, Wageningen University Dr.Paul Gauci; University of Malta: Department of Spatial Planning and Infrastructure, Faculty for the Built Environment Second reviewer: Dr.ir. Gerrit-Jan Carsjens Land Use Planning Group Wageningen University Author: Kerli Kirsimaa Reg. No. 890217436030
[email protected] Study Program: Urban Environmental Management, Land Use Planning Group Course code: LUP-80436 (36 ECTS) Wageningen, October, 2013 Abstract Malta is a small densely populated island state in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. Similarly to other small (island) states, Malta has to take into consideration the many challenges that its smallness brings to the country. The history of having been a British colony for 150 years has made Malta adopt most of its administrative and parliamentary system from the United Kingdom. As the Maltese Public Law was at the time already based on British model, the adoption of British planning legislation does not appear to have been questioned. What took place followed the concept of institutional transplantation, the transfer of institutions from one setting to another. Since the economic, political, cultural and spatial characteristics of the countries vary, the theory, developed by De Jong and Lalenis, that questions whether a transferred land use planning model is appropriate for the host society, can be applied. In Malta the first serious planning system was set up as late as in 1992 through the establishment of the Planning Authority which, to some extent, was based on British planning practices.